Heritage Black Bay Dark

A black military utility equipment

The Watch Quote™ - August 3rd, 2016

A steel divers’ watch entirely in black steel fitted with a mechanical movement, developed, manufactured and assembled in-house by TUDOR, the Heritage Black Bay Dark model is a new addition to the Heritage Black Bay family.

The characteristic elements of the Heritage Black Bay Dark’s personality have been drawn from TUDOR’s history. It inherits the general lines, as well as the domed dial and crystal from the first TUDOR diving watches. It features the particularly prominent winding crown from the famous 7924 reference of 1958, known as the Big Crown. It borrows the characteristic angular hands, known as snowflake, from the watches delivered in large quantities to the French National Navy in the 1970s. The indication of guaranteed water depth engraved in red on the dial, and the red triangle on the rotatable bezel can both be added to the list of important historic design features that reappear in this new model.

Black coating

The characteristic features of the Heritage Black Bay Dark model centre on the 41 mm wide steel case, finished with a black PVD-treated (Physical Vapour Deposition) coating. Directly derived from the thin film technology originally developed by NASA for its various space programmes, PVD or physical vapour deposition enables practically any inorganic material to be bonded with metals. The Heritage Black Bay Dark has an entirely satin finish, giving it the appearance of black military utility equipment.

The Tudor in-house movement MT5602

This is a variant of the movement manufactured by TUDOR and developed for the Heritage Black Bay model. It displays hours, minutes and seconds, and bears the reference MT5602, in which “MT” stands for “Mouvement TUDOR”. In 2015, TUDOR announced the first mechanical movement in its history to have been developed, manufactured and assembled in-house. A high-performance calibre of excellent precision and proven robustness, it offers a 70-hour power reserve meaning that its wearer can, for example, take off the watch on Friday evening and put it on again on Monday morning without having to wind it. Beating to a frequency of 28,800 beats/hour or 4Hz, the movement is regulated by a variable inertia oscillator with silicon balance spring, held in place by a traversing bridge - a guarantee of its robustness. Furthermore, the movement is certified by the Swiss Official Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC).

Supplied with two straps

With a choice of black PVD-treated steel bracelet or an aged leather strap with a black PVD-treated steel folding clasp, each Heritage Black Bay Dark model is also supplied with an extra grey fabric strap. Made in the Jacquard technique according to traditional methods by a hundred-year-old family business from the St-Etienne region of France, this strap is a signature feature of TUDOR’s Heritage line.

The Tudor divers’ watch

The history of the TUDOR divers’ watch dates back to 1954 and the launch of reference 7922. The first in a long line of ergonomic, legible, accurate and robust divers’ watches, it perfectly embodies the approach formulated by the American architect Louis Sullivan, according to whom the form of an object must follow its function. Furthermore, it laid down the aesthetic and technical foundations of an ideal divers’ watch, those of an understated, functional and reliable tool. The sixty years that followed the launch of the original 7922 saw the constant improvement of the TUDOR divers’ watch and each model gained unanimous acclaim from professionals in the field, including some of the greatest military navies in the world.

The Heritage line

A key characteristic of the TUDOR Heritage line is the unique creative process that began in 2010 with the presentation of the TUDOR Heritage Chrono model, a free interpretation of the brand’s first chronograph dating from 1970. Since then, some of the most important references in the history of TUDOR have been reworked within the Heritage line. Far from simply being an identical re-release of a classic, the models in this line bring together the past, present and future, with the aesthetic codes that contributed to the reputation of historic models instilled into contemporary timepieces. In line with this approach, the Heritage Black Bay Dark model is a new take on the iconic aesthetic codes from the TUDOR diving watch’s history.